1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of communication networks and, in particular, to providing systems and methods that store a data message (e.g., a text message or a multimedia message) for later retrieval by the recipient. More particularly, in one embodiment, if the data message cannot be delivered to the recipient, then the data message is stored and can be later retrieved by the recipient.
2. Statement of the Problem
Voice mail service in communication networks allows a called party to receive a voice mail message from a calling party when the called party is unavailable to receive a call. The voice mail service is valuable to the called party as he/she may not always be available to answer a call from the calling party (e.g., busy on another call, away from the phone, etc). When the calling party leaves a voice mail message for the called party, the called party can later access the voice mail messages to listen to the message, edit the message, forward the message, etc.
In a wireless (mobile) network, a voice mail service may be implemented as follows. A calling party places a call to a called party through the wireless network. A Mobile Switching Center (MSC) serving the calling party receives the call and routes the call to an MSC serving the called party. Responsive to receiving the call, the MSC serving the called party provides call alerting in an attempt to connect the call to the called party. If the called party does not answer the call, then the MSC routes the call to a voice mail server in the wireless network (assuming the called party has subscribed to the voice mail service). The calling party may then leave a voice mail message for the called party in the voice mail server. The voice mail server and/or the MSC serving the called party then transmit an alert message to the called party indicating that a voice mail message is being stored in a voice mailbox account of the called party. The called party can later access the voice mailbox account to retrieve the voicemail message.
Wireless service providers also offer text messaging services, such as Short Messages Service (SMS), to their subscribers. SMS is a service available to digital mobile phones that allows for transmitting and receiving short text messages. Many service providers also offer multimedia messaging services, such as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), that allow for transmitting and receiving not only text but also various kinds of multimedia content, such as images, audio clips, video clips, etc.
To send an SMS message, a sending party first enters text into a mobile phone or other text-enabled device. The sending party then enters a phone number for the recipient of the SMS message, and sends the SMS message. An MSC serving the sending party receives the SMS message and forwards the SMS message to a Short Message Service Center (SMSC). The SMSC provides a store-and-forward mechanism where the SMSC temporarily stores the SMS message, and then forwards the message to the MSC serving the recipient of the SMS message. The MSC then attempts to forward the SMS message to the recipient. If the recipient is unavailable, then the MSC may queue the message and attempt a retry after a time period. Commonly, the MSC will attempt three retries and then discard the SMS message if none of the retries are successful. The SMSC will also discard the SMS message if the MSC is not successful in forwarding the SMS message to the recipient. Message delivery by the SMSC is “best efforts” delivery and unfortunately there presently is no guarantee that an SMS message will be delivered to the recipient. Similar problems exist for MMS messages and other data messages.